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laptops and external drives

rxkevco

Posted 29 December 2005 - 08:45 AM

rxkevco

Member

Member

461 posts

Is there any way to get a laptop to recognise an external drive as part of its hdd system configiration, or will it always be seen as an external drive ???.
ie/ is there any way to boot up with the compiter recognising both ??
Can you put a seperate os on an external drive and do a dual boot ????
Hope this makes some sort of sense !!
cheers.

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makai

Posted 29 December 2005 - 01:22 PM

makai

Portlock - Oahu

Member

2,793 posts

Hmmm... never tried that before, but I imagine it could work. I think it would be more hassle than it's worth though, because, if you don't happen to have the external drive hooked up and you tried to boot, your boot.ini would probably get lost. I don't know... but let me know if you're successful.

rxkevco

Posted 29 December 2005 - 01:34 PM

rxkevco

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Topic Starter

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461 posts

Hi,
Thanks for the reply,,,
I wasnt going to have a go at this until someone says it WILL work, as i dont want to end up in the corner crying when my computer dies on me.
Its just a thought that it might work,,,would be the ideal way to use my laptops 80gig hdd for internet etc,,, and the external drive for my cubase (recording software), meaning i could get rid of my desktop and just use the laptop.
Sounds simple enough,,but i am far too pessemistic to imagine that its flawless !!!
Wouldnt really know how to go about it either !!!
Would be intresting to see what other people think of this ???

I simply want a drive for internet,,,and a drive for cubase, but only have 1 drive in the laptop.
My desktop isnt powerful enough to run the cubase to its full potential hence the laptops arrival. i cant dual boot the laptops 80gig drive as 40/40 isnt any good for either use,,, so the idea about the external drive with a different os on it for cubase surfaced ?????

makai

Posted 29 December 2005 - 03:04 PM

makai

Portlock - Oahu

Member

2,793 posts

I guess I'm missing the whole point here. I've read some of your other posts, but not in detail... but since you decided to start another thread, why do you "need" to dual boot the machine? Doesn't cubase run under XP?

warriorscot

Posted 29 December 2005 - 03:12 PM

warriorscot

Member 5k

Retired Staff

8,889 posts

Yeah i dont get why you want another OS for it, Why dont you set up a dual boot on the primary drive like most people do its far easier than farting around in bios for settings then installing an OS to an external drive.

rxkevco

Posted 29 December 2005 - 03:43 PM

Thanks for the intrest guys,,
Let me try to explain in more detail !!!!
I could be making hard work out of this,,,
Right,,,,,,new laptop,,,80gig drive,,
I want to use this laptop for recording cubase.

If i just used it for cubase,,then great,, no problem. Its cpu, ram and hdd are all more than sufficient to run cubase, and i could (as planned ), optomise xp to minimal os, to get rid of any interferance or conflict from other running services. Great,,, no probs there,
but, i want to use the laptop for domestic internet / email and listening to cds and dvds as well.

There isnt enough room on the 80gig drive to do both,, one or the other yes, but not both.
The easy answer would be to get another laptop drive and use one for normal usage, and then just swap over to the optomised cubsae drive whenever i wanted to use cubase for the day. But i know this isnt a very acceptable way to do it,, plus,, laptops are finnicky enough to start with. I dont want it to die on me cos of constant swaps, or the delicate hdd to get damaged.
SO,,,, Ithought ,,,mmmhhh,,, why cant i put xp on an external drive , optimise it, and install cubase on it and away you go, problem solved ,so to speak.
That way i could use the laptop as my everyday computer, and just connect up the external drive whenever i wanted to use cubase.
I have quite obviously been a bit confusing so far and i apologise for that.
Hopefully i have made things a bit clearer.
I do hope someone can come up with a different angle on this, as i probably cant see the wood for the trees.
cheers,,, kev.

makai

Posted 29 December 2005 - 04:06 PM

makai

Portlock - Oahu

Member

2,793 posts

Ok, I'm thinking I'm understanding this a little bit.

You basically want to be able to have 2 XP installs... one you would use with minimalized services when you run cubase... and the other with "normal" services when you run your other stuff... emai, internet, etc. Correct so far?

Since I don't know what cubase is, or what it's system requirements are... is there a reason why you just don't split your 80gig drive right down the middle and create a dual boot?

rxkevco

Posted 29 December 2005 - 04:33 PM

rxkevco

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Topic Starter

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461 posts

Thanks,,
The main reason i dont want to split the drive is that its only 80gig.

Cubase is the music industry standard for music recording and production. Its requirements are well within the laptops capabilitys apart from the drive size.
Four tracks of music (4 different instruments), takes up about 1 gig per minute, so a 12 track, 3 minute song would require about 10 gig of drive space. As most people have about 4 or 5 songs on the go in various stages of completion at any one time,,,,,, work it out !!!!!! The more space , the better.
Thats why i need a fair bit of space. Start adding virtual instruments and post recording effects like echo and reverb and it keeps draining the valuable space.
40 gig isnt enough for the cubase program and a few songs, although optomised , 80gig would be fine.

The same thing sort of applys to my normal computer use, in that i have almost 40 gig alone of music files, then pics, video etc,, so 80 gig would just about do it for domestic use,,, but leave nowhere for cubase.

I did buy the laptop solely for cubase, but since i have had it ,i have really got into the mobility and space saving aspect of it.
My desktop has plenty of ram and over 200gig of drives but only a 1.4 cpu, which is fine for surfing ect, and solves my storage problems , but is not really the best sort of machine as cubase requires min 2.4 ghz cpu to run cubase to its full potential.
My wife let me get the laptop because the desktop is too bulky, and i promised her i would get rid of it, if i could get a laptop that would meet my requirements.
I foolishly presumed that i could get around these problems by installing cubase on a second install of xp , on my external drive.

As i dont use cubase all the time,, maybe for a few days , (then i might not come back to it for another week or so ), then it soundedeasier to leave the laptop for internet, and sort out a way to get round the external drive issue.
The external drive i have, is used only as a back up of all my important files and documents in case the computer dies or gets infected. I only turn it on whenever i need to update it with something.
If i can get around this, i am quite happy to go out and get another external drive for cubase.
I hope you can see where i am coming from.
I really do appreciate your perseverance with me and this dilema.
thanks guys,, kev.

makai

Posted 29 December 2005 - 04:50 PM

makai

Portlock - Oahu

Member

2,793 posts

Well then, the only option I can think of is to upgrade the laptop hard drive. I think the limit right now is at 120gb, but I could be wrong. If you did upgrade, it would behoove you to also buy an external encloser for the drive you removed. Either that, or use the laptop as origionally intended and use the desktop for email/internet stuff.

rxkevco

Posted 29 December 2005 - 05:00 PM

rxkevco

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Topic Starter

Member

461 posts

Thanks for that Makai,
A 120gig drive is over £250 in the uk, and they are so new that you cant even find a used or refurbished one anywhere. I would be better off spending that on a better motherboard and cpu bundle for my desktop and putting it in a smaller case.
What a dilema,,,
Surely there must be another way around this.
So,, the external drive with seperate os and cubase is a non starter ?????

warriorscot

Posted 29 December 2005 - 06:39 PM

warriorscot

Member 5k

Retired Staff

8,889 posts

Cant you set cubase to use the external as its virtual memory rather than the primary that would seem to be an ideal solution, also you dont need all the services running for a normal usage pc most of the services are useless anyway, you could also use linux for a general use Os, takes up hardly anyspce and can be booted form cd or a pen, but you should be able to boot it from the external drive, you also dont need to keep everything on the one partition for a general use OS, music takes alot but it doesnt have to be on the primary it can be on the external.

To me you would have been better with a small form factor PC than a laptop cubase seems to be a software app designed for PCs rather than laptops.

But it should be able to use virtual memory from another drive, if it doesnt it may be the industry standard but it would be pretty poorly developed.